Car Review: 2013 Toyota Sienna SE

Rolling romper room needs some work

By John LeBlanc, National Post

Originally published: May 8, 2013

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Whenever one of those "best vehicles to have sex in" lists pops up on the Interweb, I don’t know why the Toyota Sienna minivan doesn’t gets mentioned more often. Amongst its admittedly shrinking list of rivals, the Toyota is one of the roomiest minivans you can buy. Heck, you could probably have a key party in the Sienna and not bump into your spouse for hours.

Forget cramped sports cars or even one of those rare sport wagons. For getting it on, there’s nothing like a minivan’s airplane hangar-like interior space to allow you to perform to the best of your abilities. But what about the times when you’re using the Sienna for less exciting functions? Like driving. With your clothes on. For duties like that, the Toyota is way less exciting.

To bring you up to speed, less roomy and economical to run crossover utility vehicles have been putting the damper on minivan sales for quite some time now. So despite their obvious people hauling qualities — like humane room for third-row passengers and their cargo, sliding doors and more car-like ride, handling and fuel-economy — minivans have become an endangered species.

Like its remaining Dodge Grand Caravan/Chrysler Town & Country, Ford Flex, Honda Odyssey and Nissan Quest rivals in this class, the current Toyota Sienna was redesigned for 2011, with only minor updates and changes since.

For $29,830 (all prices include freight and PDI), Toyota offers a unique-for-this-class, four-cylinder engine in the Sienna LE — a base model that, unsurprisingly, no one buys. Instead, most opt for the six-cylinder mill, which starts at $34,595. Also know that topline XLE AWD Siennas start at $43,115.

My $38,895 2013 Sienna tester was the SE V6 model, a trim line that Toyota says was "designed for those who appreciate aggressive design with responsive performance." While you could argue Toyota’s marketing people were right about the former, er, not so much about the latter.

At what I can only see as an attempt to attract Scion buyers who like to party, the Sienna SE has been dressed up like it’s a support vehicle for the Fast and Furious movie crew. Outside, you get huge 19-inch wheels, rubber band tires, a look-at-me body kit package, special front sport and rear fascias and front grille and a lower ride height. Inside, the Toyota avoids the 50 shades of grey design found in Honda’s less stylish Odyssey with an attractive-looking two-tone design that lightened its cavernous interior considerably. As well, the SE package adds its own multi-information display, chrome inner door handles, leather-wrapped steering wheel and power moonroof.

That said, noticeably absent for a vehicle costing $40,000 are heated front seats, the option to cover said seats in easy-to-wipe leather or a rug-rat-calming DVD entertainment system. As well, and like every version of this generation of Sienna I’ve driven, interior build quality is suspect. The use of hard, ill-fitting plastics and all-around poor fit and finish is half-acceptable in a $29,590 Dodge minivan, but not in a $40,000 Toyota.

Now once you’ve wiped the steam from its windows, put up all of its seats, and decide to drive somewhere in your rolling romper room, the sportiest version of the Sienna is isn’t all that sporty to drive. The near $5,000 extra the SE costs over a six-cylinder Sienna LE seems to be all spent on cosmetics.

For instance, you don’t get any underhood power upgrades. The Sienna SE utilizes the same front-wheel-drive, 266-horsepower and 245 pound-feet of torque 3.5-litre six-cylinder and a six-speed automatic combo found in non-SE versions. The result is a zero-to-100-km/h time of 7.5 seconds. While that’s about one-half-second quicker than the $41,590 Dodge Grand Caravan R/T (with its 283-hp six-cylinder), the Toyota is almost two seconds behind the even sportier $45,999 Ford Flex Limited EcoBoost AWD (with a 365-hp turbocharged six-cylinder).

At least fuel economy is competitive in the Toyota: 11.4 L/100 km in the city; 7.9 on the highway. But I saw a real-world 11.8 in the week I had my tester.

Unfortunately, for the romper room Toyota, fine driving seems to have been left off its menu. The Sienna SE’s extra-light steering, tall centre of gravity and extra-large dimensions means the Toyota is less responsive than a Flex or Odyssey in the corners. A sharp ride no doubt caused by its low-profile tires, plenty of road and engine noise and a considerable number of squeaks and rattles made driving long distances in the Sienna SE a tiresome affair. And I can’t remember this Toyota six-cylinder generating so much noise in Camrys or Highlanders as it does in the Sienna.

Despite its minivan for drivers marketing bumpf, the 2013 Toyota Sienna SE is not that much fun to drive. The reality is Toyota’s minivan platform trails its rivals in refinement, performance and desirability. For the times I’m not having sex in my minivan, in SE trim or not, I’d take a Ford Flex or Honda Odyssey over the Sienna.